


Dragonsong: The Exceptional Girl

by silveradept



Series: The Suck Fairy's Greatest Hits: The Dragonriders of Pern [3]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Ableism, Abuse, Child Abuse, Commentary, Domestic Violence, Elder abuse, Gaslighting, Gen, Meta, Misgendering, Non-Consensual Touching, Nonfiction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexism, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23200999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: A commentary read with excerpts of Dragonsong, the first of the Harper Hall Trilogy, part of the Dragonriders of Pern novels.
Series: The Suck Fairy's Greatest Hits: The Dragonriders of Pern [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663699
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	1. Back To One

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Director's Cut of meta originally posted at [Slacktiverse](https://slacktiverse.wordpress.com).
> 
> Content notes for each chapter are in their respective posts, and all content notes in the work are in the tags.
> 
> Director's commentary will be rendered _[in a manner like this.]_

Well, after the ball of fail and triggers that was Dragonquest, we return to the world of Pern for an entirely different trilogy, the Harper Hall trilogy. 

Worth noting here is that, despite being the third Pern book written, chronologically speaking, it is likely to be the first book that readers encounter involving the world. This is thanks to bookstores, libraries, and others marketing this trilogy in their children's and teens sections, due to the age of the primary protagonists. Does this mean that these stories will be more like the boys' adventure story chapters that we saw with Jaxom and Felessan?

Well, the main character of this book is Menolly, a young woman. So let's say my expectations are not very high. Time to get underway.

This version of the book opens with the same spoiler data as the previous two, another fairly clear addition based on current continuity, rather than the likely available material at publication. The only important thing to note is that Dragonsong starts seven Turns after the time skipped Weyrs arrive. So it's set concurrently to the events of Dragonquest, theoretically. Let's see if the timelines stay lined up.

**Dragonsong: Chapter One: Content Notes: Sexism ahoy, domestic abuse**

Chapter One opens with the preparations for a funerary rite. Which suggests that the will be more worldbuilding in this particular chapter than there has been in the two previous books. That will be... refreshing. Anyway, the Harper attached to the Half-Circle Sea Hold has died, and it falls to the Sea Holder, Yanus, to ensure his funeral goes appropriately, including the singing of the correct songs. Yanus has asked around of all the people in the Hold with musical talent, and had been told the same thing - not I, but your youngest daughter, Menolly, she can. Which aggravates Yanus and his wife, Mavi, because neither of them is fond of the thought that Menolly wants to become a Harper, instead of taking an interest in those things that are proper for a young girl in a Sea Hold.

Given the way the narrative has treated women who have ideas about breaking out of "traditional" roles and doing what they want to do so far, I would place a money bet that Menolly is going to be injured, killed, or psychologically scarred by her parents before the book is over. If not her parents, then a random event will do it, instead. This is also making me wonder whether the classification as a kid or teen book is because they saw the age of the protagonist and forgot to read the actual content.

After the brief interlude of how her parents disapprove of her career aspirations, we go to the actual burial at sea. Menolly is able to perform the Deathsong, but collapses in tears afterward, with a brief memory of the Harper, Petiron, who is definitely a progressive voice on Pern. Petiron sent some compositions of Menolly's to Robinton, a sure sign of his respect for her talent. Alas, gender roles have already taken hold in Menolly's mind.

> "Women can't be Harpers," she'd said to Petiron, astonished and awed. 
> 
> "One in ten hundred have perfect pitch," Petiron had said in one of his evasive replies. "One in ten thousand can build an acceptable melody with meaningful words. We're you only a lad, there'd be no problem at all."  
>  "Well, we're stuck with me being a girl."  
>  "You'd make a fine big strong lad, you would," Petiron had replied exasperatingly.  
>  "And what's wrong with being a fine big strong girl?" Menolly had been half-teasing, half-annoyed.  
>  "Nothing, surely. Nothing."

For which the end of days for this brilliant man were either dementia or Alzheimer's or another neurological disease. Even in the secondary characters, the narrative punishes the progressives.

_[Petiron's character will be fleshed out significantly more in later books of Pern, and he will come out of the other end of it looking much worse than he is here. At this particular juncture, knowing what I know now, the most important thing to understand is that Petiron only cares about Menolly's musical talent. Everything else, including her gender and any traditions about who is or isn't supposed to be a Harper, is pretty solidly second to the fact that she's a musical prodigy. Had Petiron been around to instruct Menolly more or sponsor her trip to the Harper Hall, he would likely have shown some of the things that he will show to his own son, who is also a very talented Harper, in a later book. We'll get to that, though, when that book comes around.]_

Also, based on this exchange, I'm imagining Menolly as a tall, broad-shouldered, solidly built and muscular woman until the narrative says otherwise. And even then, I might tell the narrative to fuck off. Because, if the narrative seems to be setting Menolly up as a tomboy, I don't want her to look small and weak so that the narrative can try to make us believe she deserves the abuse she's going to get.

Having sung her elegy, the boat returns, Menolly steps off, and the work of fishing begins immediately after. Life continues, and Yanus is orchestrating the moving-on as fast as he can. Mavi is doing her part to erase any trace of the Harper by organizing the children that would be receiving instruction into work crews to take care of errands at the Hold. Menolly runs her appointed task (checking to make sure all the glows - fungus used as light sources in the caves - are properly topped up so they shine well) with an efficiency of practice that Fandarel would approve of, which puts her at the Harper's door in time to hear an argument between her mother and Soreel, the wife of another Holder, about who will teach the children, since it's unlikely a new Harper will arrive until spring. Both Mavi and Yanus don't want Menolly in that role, because sexism and because Menolly, not yet fifteen, has a knack for improvising earworms outside of the official canon. Yanus can't find a way to put someone else in charge, though, and neither can Mavi, because apparently doing MANLY THINGS like the tasks of fishing removes your ability to play complex rhythms and callouses your hands in the wrong way, so Menolly gets the job, but not without threats from Yanus.

> "But I'll have no more of those finger-twiddlings of yours."  
>  "I sang my songs when Petiron was alive and you never minded them..."  
>  Yanus frowned down at his tall daughter.  
>  "Petiron _was_ alive. He's dead now, and you'll obey me in this..."  
>  Over her father's shoulders, Menolly saw her mother's drowning face, saw her warning headshake, and held back a quick reply.  
>  "You'll bear in mind what I've said!" And Yanus fingered the wide belt he wore. "No tuning!"  
>  "Yes, Yanus."  
>  [...]  
>  Once in the hallway, Mavi gripped her daughter's arm hard. "Don't disobey him, girl."  
>  "There's no harm in my tunes, mother. You know what Petiron said..."  
>  "I'll remind you the old man's dead. And that changes everything that went on during his life. Behave yourself while you stand in a man's place. No tuning! Too bed now, and mind you turn the glowbaskets. No sense wasting light no eye needs."

Because everyone knows that threatening your daughter with a beating is completely the right way to enforce discipline. Fuck you, Yanus, you shit-eating asshole.

Also, it is apparently a rule of Pern that named men in relationships with named women abuse their women in some way, usually physically. The way that Mavi warns Menolly off of crossing Yanus makes it sound entirely like this is not the first time Yanus had used the belt on Mavi and Menolly. Assuming that Yanus uses the belt and doesn't just beat Menolly and Mavi with his hands. 

Because it's a children's book, it's only a threat, but it's the kind of threat that leaves nothing to the imagination. And I have a sinking feeling it's not going to be a threat before we're done.

Secondly, Yanus and Mavi are supposed to be Menolly's parents. So what's with the exceedingly formal address between daughter and parents? Yes, Yanus. No harm, mother. Don't cross him, girl. Not a familiar address in the whole sequence, so the implication here is that nobody in the family is particularly fond of each other. Not like we need any familial bonds or anything when things that can kill you are falling on irregular patterns outside.

There is one nice thing - nailed it on Menolly's height. Although she's not so tall as to be taller than Yanus, so that he can still be scary and intimidating and exert his patriarchal authority on her. If she was taller than him, well, then she might get it in her head to punch him out or something for his abuse. The narrative couldn't have that, even though I'm desperately hoping she does just that to Yanus, and soon.

I really was hoping for something different, but it seems like we're only going to get more of the same. Places, everyone.


	2. Her Nature Wins Out In The End

Last time, we met Menolly, fourteen, singer, and much-beloved of the now dead Harper of Half-Circle Hold, who believed in her talent enough to suggest that she could break the glass ceiling on the Harper craft. When we last left her, she'd been placed in charge of teaching the younger children while there's no Harper. Because there aren't any men to do the job.

In the comment section, it became abundantly clear that if I go far enough to get to the colonist stories, I'm going to need to have already harvested groves worth of Whatfruit to keep up with the demand.

**Dragonsong: Chapter Two: Content Notes: Domestic Abuse, Child Abuse**

Before we get to the plot, I'm going to say, as a person who does play music, that seeing a line like "It was easy for Menolly to further her tuning" is a very weird line, mostly because an instrumentalist who forgot to tune (to ensure the pitch of the instrument is actually at the correct frequency for the note that is supposedly being played) would soon stop playing and tune to try and make things sound better. Seeing it used as a verb in the other context requires a mental shift.

Chapter Two starts with Menolly being excellent at her job, much to Yanus's consternation, doubly so because Menolly is extremely good. A sealed missive from Robinton arrives addressed to Petiron, which is placed on the mantel and promptly ignored by everyone there. When Menolly inquires after it, she's told by Mavi that nobody will open a dead man's mail, and that Menolly has been "getting above herself" with her current profession. And then forces Menolly to do the most smelly and/or boring jobs after she's done teaching. 

Now I know why things are so formal between Menolly and her parents - her parents are entirely unsupportive of her, they intend to crush her spirit, abuse her, and make her into what they believe a proper daughter should be.

So Menolly joins the flamethrower ground crews that scour the land after Threadfall to burn up anything that got through the dragons - and is hoping that she'll get the chance to watch real Threadfall, instead of just singing about it. It excites her, and it gives her the opportunity to get out of the house. Plus, she gets to see the Benden Weyrleader - but is so very smitten by Menementh's beauty, and the dragon (who she thinks looked at her!) is all she can think about for a while.

We find, though, that Sella, her sister, is spying on her to make sure she's not playing unapproved music (because Yanus abuses her, too, and she's afraid of him), and at the party that night over the visit from the dragonrider, Menolly plays sea shanties (Yanus disapproves) and the songs of the dragonriders in honor of their visits.

Realizing that she can't carry the load of all the singing and playing herself, Menolly starts to teach the drums to one of her students with an aptitude for rhythm, which brings Mavi down on Menolly in a hurry.

> "Teaching anyone to play is Harper business, not yours, m'girl. Just your good fortune Sea Holder is out in the Deep or you'd have the belt across your withers, so you would. No more nonsense."  
>  "But it's not nonsense, Mavi. Last night another drummer or piper would have..."  
>  Her mother raised her hand in warning, and Menolly bit shut her lips.

So her mother apparently threatens to beat Menolly, too. And I can see all of this hostility to Menolly as victims of abuse trying desperately to do the things they think will stop the abuser from targeting them, which is sad and requires empathy for them as victims. That said, if Yanus ends up with iocaine powder-laced food in his dinner some night, or had the "misfortune" of being caught out in his boat during Threadfall, there will be nobody in his family mourning his passing.

And time passes, and Menolly composes tunes, because she can't play them, all while Mavi secretly watches her, and Yanus watches her teaching sessions more overtly, because Mavi is afraid that Menolly's nature will come through, and that will mean beatings from Yanus because of Menolly's disobedience and because he still doesn't believe women should rise above their station. So when the inevitable slip happens, it's during Teaching, and Menolly isn't conscious that her chord progression is nonstandard, and Yanus hears. And, after dismissing the kids to unload the boats,

> silently, which made the anticipation of the punishment worse, removed his wide belt, signaled to Menolly to raise her tunic over her and to bend over the high harper's stool.

Hang on. Not just so that I can say "Fuck you, Yanus, you abusive shit-eating asshole" again, but this entire scene hinges on Yanus, the person who has been disapproving of Menolly the entire time, having a good enough ear that he can pick out a variation on a Teaching Song. Now, if I were singing the Star-Spangled Banner to a group of United States residents, and I plunked a note in the melody, it would be pretty obvious to the listening audience. But if I changed the backing chords so that they stayed in harmony to the melody, but weren't the official chords written down, you would have to be both able to hear the variation and to be able to compare it to the official variety in your head to notice. The narrative has given us precisely zero indication that Yanus has the ear to be able to pick out a variation. In fact, it insists that the rough manly life of a fisherman removes the ability to appreciate and play good music. Yanus is the absolute last person who should be able to pull a stunt like this.

Also, just to be clear:

_[First, there's a Cocowhat, then...]_

As if realizing that talking about variations on chords isn't really enough justification for the beating, the narrative provides a post-hoc justification for Yanus's behavior.

> When he had finished, she had fallen to her knees on the hard stone flags, biting her lips to keep back the sobs. He'd never beaten her so hard before.  
>  [...]  
>  Only when she'd hit slowly to her feet did she realize that he'd taken the gitar, too. She knew then that his judgment was irrevocable and harsh.  
>  And unjust! She'd only played the first few bars...hummed along...and only that because the last bits of the Teaching Ballad had modified into the new tune in her head.  
>  [...]  
>  She hadn't **meant** to disobey Yanus.

No, you didn't mean it, but abusers are always looking out for the slightest provocation, Menolly. (Also, I win the bet I didn't want to win from the last post.) Mavi arrives to the empty Hall, is able to deduce what has happened, and rather than extend empathy to her daughter and try to help her, Mavi thrusts a bag at her and emotionlessly tells her to go collect greens. Actually seeing the wounds produces "an inarticulate exclamation" and a comment that Menolly will need anesthetic for some of the marks. Menolly strikes back with a line that hits on both levels of the conversation.

> "What good's a beating, then, if it's numbed away first chance?"

The numbing is usually a coping mechanism. To this point, Menolly has been coping with her abusive environment through her musical practice and talent, under Petiron's guidance and protection. Now that the protection is gone, Yanus is moving as swiftly as possible to try and break Menolly and bring her under control, like he has done to Mavi and Sella, by systematically removing her avenues of escape and what makes her happy. What she'll have left is what Mavi is already doing - dissociation, numbness, lack of empathy, because trying to connect only creates a vulnerability for Yanus to attack.

And this is ostensibly a childrens' book, published well before our current dystopian trend.

Menolly runs out to gather the greens, smarting from the abuse and certain that if she were a boy, then none of this would be happening. From what I've seen of Pern so far, Menolly, I would not take your bet. But Menolly gets the first good thing of the book here - a clutch of fire-lizards bursts into view in a mating flight pattern right in front of her. While Menolly watches, the narrative slips a sly justification into place as to why only bronze dragons get to gold queens - the green, blue, and brown fire-lizards have all dropped out of the chase because they can't keep up with the gold queen. It's natural that bronzes should be superior, then, and the narrative will zealously punish those that think otherwise. 

The rest of the chapter is Menolly sneaking as close as she dares to the group of fire-lizards to observe them, cutting herself a reed pipe, and playing a jaunty tune as she heads back to the Hold. With one question at the end - do the dragons know about the fire-lizards?


	3. Daughter of the Revenge of the Narrative

Last time, I won a bet I hoped not to, and Menolly found a full set of fire-lizards. With her spirits lifted, she returns to the Hold.

**Dragonsong: Chapters 3-4: Content Notes: Gaslighting**

Menolly's return is greeted with immediately having to go wash her greens in the kitchen and a chastisement for being outside so long, when a ship has come in and there's the threat of Threadfall at any time. Menolly is given the explicit instructions to keep Old Uncle (yes, that's his name) full of food so that he doesn't talk and take up a lot of time. Sella, one of Menolly's sisters, is better at this, but because Menolly is the low person in the hierarchy right now, she gets the task. Which is written as an elder care nightmare - Old Uncle smells, and complains about how nobody pays any attention to him any more, and takes his time, and never shuts up about anything. He also is a double-amputee (below the knee), and is suffering from some form of neurological issue as well. To get him to the Great Hall, Menolly carries him to his place.

> The old man was so frail that he was no burden to a strong girl like Menolly. She carried him down the steps, he complaining all the way about people who'd been dead before she was born.

I was right again, I see, about Menolly's body construction - tall and strong are confirmed, so that picture I have of a muscular Menolly punching out Yanus just needs Menolly punching out Yanus.

The guest of honor tonight is the new Harper! His name is Elgion. And he brought some nice instruments with him. Menolly wants to listen to the Harper's songs, but Old Uncle interrupts with a demand for happier songs, and when stuffed with sweets to keep him quiet, Old Uncle resents being told to be quiet. Like someone does when they know they're being handled so that they don't cause a fuss. So when he starts to hiccup from the food, it interrupts his complaints, and to try and clear the hiccups, he starts pounding on his chair, which is sufficiently out-of-rhythm with the Harper's song to be funny, if everyone wasn't so very invested in making this a solemn, serious affair. Because Yanus is that kind of guy who would take laughter at something that's funny and make it an affront to his honor and the Hold's honor.

So Menolly has to take Old Uncle back to bed and get him situated, which takes a long time. Then Mavi berates her for the embarrassment Old Uncle caused. Then Threadfall, which means mucking in the marsh looking for burrows. Then loading nets, getting and gutting fish, and mending nets while Yanus glowers and paces, so there's no singing.

And then her sister gaslights her.

> "Angry about Old Uncle?" Sella shrugged. "What on earth [Shouldn't that be Pern?] are you talking about, girl? Who remembers that? You think entirely too much about yourself, Menolly, that's your biggest problem. Why should Yanus care one way or another about **you**?"  
>  The scorn in Sella's voice reminded Menolly too acutely that she was only a girl, too big for a proper girl, and the youngest of a large family, therefore of least account.

Which is pretty much the opposite of reality. Yanus cares far too much about Menolly, and in all the wrong ways.

Also, nailed it, completely, on Menolly's appearance.

Anyway, the hell days continue. Mavi yells at Menolly for not keeping herself and her room clean, and then Menolly had to help clean a completely new catch. Due to her sleep deprivation and distraction, she slices her hand open with the fish knife, and the shock is such that Menolly doesn't react, just stares at it.

Then her mother gaslights her, in much the same way as Sella did - Mavi says nobody thought Menolly cut herself deliberately to get out of the work, despite everyone giving Menolly looks that said they were thinking just that. You see, I trust Menolly's observations about reality more than anything Mavi or Sella says, because both Mavi and Sella are actively trying to get Menolly hurt, even if it is out of fear of Yanus.

Now, the narrative still hates women who exercise independence and progressive thought, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that the fish that Menolly was working on is venomous, and that the venom has infected her hand. Chapter 3 ends before we get full confirmation of what happens, but Mavi tells Menolly that she'll be lucky to have a functional hand, but that her music days are definitely over, even if her hand heals well enough for her to be able to play any musical instrument.

Chapter 4 starts with that confirmation - no amputation needed, thank Prime, but Menolly definitely has a hand that will not function at full capacity.

Is it wrong of me to think that this is so because the protagonist is fourteen, and killing her from venom is a bridge too far, even for this narrative? If this were the other books, Chapter Four would have opened with the new Harper singing Menolly's funeral, and then the plot that was intended for this book would move forward.

Now that Menolly has been injured to the narrative's satisfaction, there is a veritable outpouring of familial love for her. Mavi stays by her for the entire recovery time, nursing Menolly back to health. The cries of her seriously injured daughter produces the empathy that has been lacking. Yanus is sorry that his daughter cut herself, and maybe misses her singing a little bit, but he's not actually remorseful, considering that he thinks Menolly's injury is for the best, because women have other things to do than sing and play instruments.

I'm still holding out hope for Menolly punching out her father, because the narrative is going to have to make up a lot of ground if it wants to get back in something resembling a lack of active hostility from me. I don't think it will ever actually get to good graces ever again.

We'll stop here, just a few pages in. Next time, what one of the Benden Weyrleader's plans looked like on the actual ground. Or actually, what one of Robinton's plans looks like on the ground.


	4. Secret Missions

Last time, the narrative attacked Menolly repeatedly, culminating in the crippling of one of her hands due to venomous fish slime infecting a deep hand wound brought on by fatigue from punishment duties assigned by her mother and father.

**Dragonsong: Chapter 4: Content Notes: Sexism**

So, we're going to pick up in Chapter 4 where we left off, at the point where Chapter 4 really should have started. Rather than trying to cliffhang on whether or not Menolly's hand would have function enough to play, it would be better to end after the outpouring of familial love, such that it is. It allows readers to have a happy point ("See, they do love her after all...") and gives deconstructors a nice place to hang their hat ("...only after they know she won't be able to pursue her forbidden dreams."). Besides, we're told, Mavi said her hand wouldn't be good enough for playing, and Mavi never lies. Which is an assertion I can't disprove in that Mavi has never told a direct falsehood to Menolly, but that I will give the biggest side-eye to because of Mavi's entrenched interest in letting Yanus hurt Menolly and hurting Menolly herself. Lies of omission and coloration of Menolly's perspective, though, I'm pretty sure have already happened before the narrative arrived.

Like the one Yanus commits when Elgion asks about who taught the kids.

> At first, thinking that Menolly had been nowhere near as skilled as everyone had assumed, Yanus had told Elgion that a fosterling had undertaken the task and that he'd returned to his own Hold just prior to the Harper's arrival.  
>  "Whoever did this has the makings of a good Harper then," Elgion told his new Holder. "Old Petiron was a better teacher than most."  
>  The praise unexpectedly disturbed Yanus. He couldn't retract his words, and he didn't want to admit to Elgion that the person was a girl. So Yanus decided to let matters stand. No girl could be a Harper, any way the road turned. Menolly was too old now to be in any of the classes, and he'd see that she was busy with other things until she came to think of her playing as some childish fancy. At least she hadn't disgraced the Hold.

I'm sorry, did I say lie of omission? That's only after the _blatant lie_ about who taught the kids.

I'm also beginning to wonder whether there was only one plot in mind when it came to writing these books, because this is the third set-up of "resourceful protagonist must defeat intensely traditional antagonist" in as many books.

Anyway, Elgion is on a mission from Robinton to gauge how receptive and open to change Yanus is and to get him to start thinking beyond his own Hold and into bigger logistical problems. Which Elgion does in a fairly ham-fisted manner, and Yanus gives his responses in as few words as possible, and as close to traditions as Yanus can get. We can forgive Elgion his methods, as the narrative informs us that this is his first posting, but we're also told that Elgion has been prepped to find this Hold hide-bound and that there would be difficulty sussing out who the songmaker is. Petiron, however, appears to have neglected to mention his songmaker is a woman. Perhaps because he thinks Robinton isn't quite ready to go there (which we've seen, at least the cultivated image of misogyny that Robinton needs for dealing with actual misogynist Holders), or because he thought the message wouldn't get through if he did.

_[Both of Petiron and Robinton's later characterizations will contradict this, because Petiron will turn out to be monofocused about musical talent and Robinton will turn out to be a voice of progressivism, compared to the rest of his society, and so there's no reason to believe that Petiron wouldn't have mentioned it and Robinton wouldn't have dispatched someone immediately to grab her for the Harper Hall. Such are the dangers of long-running series that don't have continuity checkers.]_

In either case, Elgion seems content to wait for the time where the supposedly male Harper candidate will present themselves. Yanus and Mavi have both sabotaged this plan by directing those who know not to say anything, those who might have enjoyed Menolly's music not to ask for it, and giving Menolly tasks to keep her away from where music is made.

Unsurprisingly, Menolly is depressed about her musical capability.

> If Mavi was perplexed by the quietness and passivity of her youngest child, she put it down to the long and painful recovery, not to loss of her music. Mavi knew that all manner of pain and trouble could be forgotten in time, and so did her best to keep her daughter occupied. Mavi was a very busy woman, and Menolly kept out of her way.  
>  Gathering greens and fruit suited Menolly perfectly. It kept her out in the open and away from the Hold, away from people.

This line of reasoning from Mavi, however, doesn't quite fit for me. Especially since there's been a lot of movement just before this to keep Menolly from being able to play her music, some of which Mavi has participated in. And, with this continued subtle acknowledgement that Mavi is also an abuse victim, I would think Mavi's first thought would be that the depression is entirely about what Yanus beat her over. Perhaps Mavi has too much experience ignoring the truth to be able to confront it now.

_[Understanding a bit more now than I did then about depression and its mechanisms, and how good people are at hiding the real causes of their depression and issues, Mavi not having a clue is a lot more believable to me now. Especially since it's pretty clear she's also an abuse victim. It would be hard for her to develop any empathy or to acknowledge the reality of her situation, when there's no obvious or even feasible exit from it coming any time soon.]_

Life continues on - shellfish get hunted, greens get gathered, a large amount of concern is raised about abnormally high tides (new knowledge - Pern seafarers know that tides are caused by heavenly objects, but they mistakenly believe only the solid objects exert gravitational pull enough to affect tides.), and so Menolly is out running, thinking about nothing to numb the pain, and looking for signs of high seas when she encounters the fire-lizards again. The fire-lizards are in a complete panic, and when Menolly tries to creep closer to figure out what's going on, she takes a long ride down the cliffside. Which turns out to her advantage, as Menolly finds out what has the fire-lizards a-flutter. There's a clutch of eggs and a rising tide.

Here we have some great writing about trying to communicate with a species that might be able to understand you, but that you can't necessarily understand back. When not actively trying to hurt the main characters, the story and the writing ability starts to come through. So, Menolly's deductive process for figuring out what's going on goes like this:

  1. Eggs! I almost stepped on them. Maybe if I back off, I can climb up the cliff. [Result: Fire-lizards stop attacking.]
  2. Good, that worked. I'll try to stay away from the eggs and climb. [Result: Fire-lizards attack. Menolly's cheek is scratched.]
  3. Observation: Queen is trying to protect the clutch. How ungrateful of them to not recognize the one who made a nice tune for you. Also, laughter makes the fire-lizards disappear. Maybe I can climb the cliff while laughing? [Result: Too tough to climb while laughing. Also, fire-lizards attack.]
  4. Maybe singing will grant safe passage? [Result: No audience for song, but curiosity and rapt attention from the fire-lizards. Singing again while attempting to climb results in fire-lizard attack.]
  5. Attempt to explain that I can't stay, because the tide is coming in. [Result: Queen fire-lizard cries shrilly, heads to egg clutch, grabs an egg, hauls it upward to a cavern, rolls the egg into the cavern.]
  6. Oh! Queen lizard needs help moving eggs. Carefully move an egg from the beach to the cavern. [Result: Queen appears, rolls egg into cavern.]
  7. Okay. Three eggs this time. Observation: The tide will win the race unless the other lizards can help.
  8. Observation: A bigger hole will provide that help, and would allow for one trip with all the eggs in a greens sack. Action: Widen the hole. [Result: Queen fire-lizard is upset! And with good reason - if Menolly collapses the entrance to the cave, those eggs are lost.]
  9. Action: Load eggs into sack. [Result: Queen fire-lizard attacks. Someone is stealing her eggs!]
  10. Menolly scolds the queen fire-lizard, who appears to understand and subsides.



Three trips later, all the eggs are safe and Menolly is free to climb the cliff and return home. After she climbs the cliff, Menolly reflects on what she has learned. And, uncharacteristically, the narrative rewards Menolly for her good deed helping the fire-lizards.

> Her hand ached in a dull way, and the long scar was red and slightly swollen. But, as Menolly flexed her fingers, it seemed that the hand opened more easily. Yes, it did. She could almost extend her fingers completely. It hurt, but it was a stretchy-hurt. Could she open her hand enough to play again? She folded her fingers as if to chord. That hurt, but again, it was a stretchy-hurt. Maybe if she worked her hand a lot more...

And thus, Menolly discovers physical therapy. Having broken two fingers myself, after everything was pinned up and healed, it took a very long time of straining against the position the fingers were locked into for the healing. Eventually, with the diligent application of exercises, the flexibility of the fingers has been restored. So, in Menolly's case, perhaps her hand will be restored to proper functionality after all.

That's weird. And a bit scary, because now I'm worried the narrative is going to Kick The Dog very hard before we're done.


	5. The Same, Yet Different

When we last left Menolly, she had discovered a clutch of fire-lizard eggs and used the power of SCIENCE! to assist the gold queen of the lizards in saving the eggs from an onrushing tide. In doing so, Menolly also discovered that her injured hand might yet be able to return to full strength.

**Dragonsong: Chapter 5: Content Notes: Family toxicity**

Chapter Five opens with our budding scientist thinking over more questions with regard to her encounter - can fire-lizards understand humans? If so, how, because dragons are, to the best of her knowledge, a one-to-one correspondence decided on at Hatching. What would a fire-lizard Hatching look like? And so forth. We have the benefit of previous knowledge through previous books, but someone coming to this series for the first time through these volumes is receiving an excellent set of questions to keep an eye out for. When not actively trying to hurt characters, the narrative and writing show skill at weaving a plot.

Alas, Menolly cannot immediately go to gather more data - storms keep everyone inside, and so there is cleaning to be done, glow baskets to be checked, and more. That evening, Menolly has to face Elgion playing music.

> She had to hear music sometime. She couldn't avoid it forever. And at least she could sing along with the others. But she soon found she couldn't even have that pleasure. Mavi beckoned to her when the Harper began to tune his gitar. And when the Harper beckoned for everyone to join in the choruses, Mavi pinched Menolly so hard she gasped.  
>  "Don't roar. You may sing softly as befits a girl your age," Mavi said. "Or don't sing at all."  
>  Across the Hall, Sella was singing, not at all accurately and loud enough to be heard in Benden Hold; but when Menolly opened her mouth to protest, she got another pinch.  
>  So she didn't sing at all but sat there by her mother's side, numb and hurt, not even able to enjoy the music and very conscious that her mother was being monstrously unfair.  
>  [...]  
>  Then Menolly saw her father watching her, his face stem, one hand tapping not so much to the time of the music but to some inner agitation. It was her father who didn't want her to sing! It wasn't fair! It just wasn't fair! Obviously they knew and were glad she can't come before. They didn't want her here.

I think this is supposed to read as a teenage temper tantrum, the kind that are ridiculously out of proportion and the fodder for teen dramas and comedies alike. If Menolly were anything other than _one-hundred percent accurate_ in her assessment, then it might be possible to read it as teenage exaggeration. Yanus, and thus, Mavi, are still very invested in making sure the Harper gets zero clue that Menolly has musical talent, lest the Harper encourage it more and Menolly continue to have ideas that women can do things traditionally reserved to men. It's not fair at all.

Having been told she cannot enjoy herself, Menolly leaves the Hall over her mother's hissed protests, and arises the next morning before everyone else to go visit the fire-lizards, who are at least an attentive audience. The Hold's main doors nearly scuttle her plans before they can get underway, but Menolly is a strong girl and is able to open them enough to leave the Hold. Which leaves the doors closed but unlocked, but Menolly doesn't care about such things. Or understand why they have to be locked and the room glows extinguished, for that matter. Menolly forages for some food, and ruminates on how nobody will miss her until they have some menial task for her, or until the evening, when they expect her to return. 

Which leads to the realization that Menolly doesn't intend to return to the Hold and the misery it contains. The free life is much more appealing. Practicality kicks in soon afterward - food is probably covered by foraging, but she needs somewhere to sleep at night, and somewhere she can take shelter from both the elements and Threadfall. As she approaches the fire-lizard caverns, her danger sense kicks into overdrive. It's too quiet. Looking over her shoulder, she sees why - Threadfall is inbound. Add Menolly casts about in panic, trying to find a suitable shelter against the deadly rain, she hears a thrummimg sound coming from the ground underneath. Menolly correctly deduces the cavern is hollow, and makes for the ledge where she had widened an entry to see if she can get herself protected. The original hole only covers her head and shoulders - so she tries to widen it more, but strikes rock far too soon for that plan to work.

And then, inspiration strikes.

> She could only get herself into the shelter up to her shoulders. No matter how she turned and twisted, the was an outcropping that she could not pass. Once again she wished she were as small as a girl ought to be. Sella would have had no trouble crawling through that hole.  
>  ...  
>  How long did she have before Thread would be raining down on her unprotected body?  
>  Body? She might not get past the bobble in the wall with her shoulders...but...She reversed her position, and feet, legs, hips, all right up to the shoulders passed into the safety of solid rock. Her head was covered, but only just, by the cliff overhang.

Perfect pitch, size, strength, and brains! Menolly has all the potential to be completely awesome at whatever she does, assuming she can escape that toxic environment. And assuming the institutional sexism of her chosen profession doesn't prevent her from getting a foothold. Because, it appears, only Fandarel is openly pursuing equality - in the name of efficiency, of course.

Menolly notices she didn't bring her sack of food in with her, so after a little fighting with it, she retrieves the sack - and the force of the retrieval sends her deeper into the cave system as the ledge she was hiding out on gives way. (It also apparently removes whatever obstacle was obstructing her head and shoulders earlier.) Menolly realizes that she's in the middle of the Hatching Ground right as the eggs hatch. The first few fire-lizards head out, only to have Threadfall meet them at the entrance to the cave. Menolly tries to stop the fire-lizards from exiting, but they attack her and get around her when she had to defend herself. Menolly pleads with the older fire-lizards to stop the younger ones.

> The thrill of being the witness to a Hatching of fire lizards gave way to horror. Dragons had to be protected because they protected Pern. In Menolly's fear and confusion, the little fire lizards were linked to their giant counterparts.  
>  [...]  
>  She was overwhelmed with pangs of hunger, belly-knotting, gut-twisting hunger. It took her only a moment to realize that the driving force in these fire lizards was that sort of hunger: that was what was sending them senselessly forth. They had to eat. She remembered that dragons had to eat, too, when they first Hatched, fed by the boys they Impressed.

This is nicely done - those with previous knowledge of the relationship between fire lizards and dragons know this is correct - but for someone coming new to this series, this is a great subtle hint of that relationship, if we are to believe that Menolly is not confused, but correct. Based on the characterization shown thus far, we should be willing to believe Menolly's hypothesis about this relationship.

Also, Menolly demonstrates the power of SCIENCE! again. Even if the initial thought of hunger being the motivating force is an intuitive leap based on dragon information, the experimentation that follows is good science. Menolly snags a fire-lizard in one hand and a shellfish in the other. The fire-lizard kills the shellfish and heads to a corner to feast. Repeat experiment, same result. Realizing she can't catch them all for hand-feeding, Menolly dumps out her shellfish catch on the ground of the cavern, and the fire lizards go to town on the food. It's not enough to satisfy them, but it does delay them long enough so that the Thread has passed by the time they are finished. With the danger gone, the new clutch and the old grouping go off to find more food, and, after eating the one bit of food not sacrificed to the fire-lizards, Menolly goes to sleep in the cavern, exhausted. That closes out Chapter 5, and I'd like to think Menolly dreams of a serpent eating its tail.

Menolly demonstrates the same perception and empathy that Jaxom did in Dragonquest. I don't think it's a coincidence that the most empathetic and well fleshed-out characters in the stories are children. They don't have dragons or political power or other things interfering with their ability to understand the fairness of the situation, and they are unconstrained and able to act on those feelings, which gives them the advantage of getting to see how things turn out without too much influence from politics or other adults skewing the results.


	6. Ninety-Nine Problems

When we last left Menolly, she ran away from her Hold to live with the fire lizards, and successfully used the power of SCIENCE! and some fortuitous preparation to prevent mass casualties among a clutch of newly-hatched lizards until the Threadfall they would have flown into had passed.

**Dragonsong: Chapter 6: Content Notes: Ableism, Sexism**

Chapter Six returns to Half-Circle Hold, where Menolly's prediction about not being missed is completely true - her absence is only noted because Sella has had to attend Old Uncle after his seizure, and she does not want to deal with this particular misery all alone.

> "That's about all she's good for now, anyway," Sella told Mavi and then hastily demurred at her mother's stern look. "Well, all she does is drag about, cradling that hands of hers as if it were precious. She gets off all the **real** work..." Sella let out a heavy sigh.  
>  "We've enough trouble this morning what with someone leaving the Hold doors unfastened and Thread falling..." Mavi shuddered at the thought of that brace of horrors, the mere notion of Thread cascading down, able to wriggle within the Hold, turned her stomach.

This is a more convincing portrayal of the uncaring nature of teenagers and siblings - Sella sees Menolly's injury only in how it relates to her own workload, and understands that it isn't particularly fair. Mavi is more concerned about the Adult Fear of a devouring parasite invading the Hold. Which is a nice way of showing the reader why the doors get barred at night. It's a little disconcerting that Menolly wouldn't have deduced this, but she was understandably pissed about not being able to enjoy music, so we'll give her a pass.

Sella tries to find Menolly in all the usual haunts, but she's not there. Which only annoys Sella more, until she considers the prospect that Menolly went out in the Threadfall. Which is enough to jar her out of her jealousy and into straight-up fear. So she goes to see Alemi, Menolly and Sella's brother, who is also chief of the flamethrower crews.

> "You think Menolly left the Hold early?" Alemi realized a strong, tall girl like Menolly could very easily have managed the door bars.  
>  "You know how she's been since she hurt her hand: creeping away every chance she gets."  
>  Alemi did know, for he was find of his gawky sister, and he particularly missed her singing. He didn't share Yanus's reservations about Menolly's ability. And he didn't honestly agree with Yanus's decision to keep knowledge of it from the Harper, now that there was a Harper in the Hold to keep her in line.

gaw-ky. adj. Awkward, ungainly, clumsy.

Of the woman who was until recently playing complex melody and singing to fosterlings. Exactly where is "clumsy" coming from, unless it's a recent thing brought on by the injury and having to relearn things with a different hand. And not a few sentences earlier, Alemi says that the heavy doors would be no problem at all for Menolly. Which is it, Alemi? Tall, strong, oops-I-don't-know-my-own-strength Menolly, or tall, strong, can play complex melodies and gut fish equally well Menolly?

Second, Great Fucking Maker, the sexism is ingrained here in this Hold. Oh, sure, now we're okay with Menolly developing her musical talent, but only if there's a _man_ there to make sure she doesn't get any ideas. I really hope by the end of this book, Robinton shows us that he's always been okay with equality and has been trying to get his Crafthall to change, too.

Third, what is it with this family showing affection and care for Menolly only when she's not around? Is it because Yanus isn't around, either, so everyone feels like they can voice their true opinions without it resulting in abuse? At some point, I would hope that everyone who has affection for Menolly will realize they have allies and band together against Yanus. Because that's what it will take to break his power.

So Sella reports back, apparently taking some pleasure in it and in adding her theory that it was Menolly who left the doors open. (Apparently, whatever fear or empathy Sella had for Menolly is gone, and she's back to her teenage self) Mavi assigns Sella to continue talking care of Old Uncle, snarking that it's well-suited to her temperament, even if it isn't "real work", and goes to tell Yanus of the news.

Yanus is relieved at the solution to the mystery of the unbarred doors, and mentally blames Mavi as the cause for not keeping Menolly busy enough. Because it couldn't possibly be his fault for beating Menolly and restricting her musical enjoyment and trying to generally make her miserable so that she'll be pliable and obedient. No abuser would ever admit their own culpability, because that would mean they would have to change, instead of blaming everyone else. We also note that Yanus has not expressed any empathy, fear, or sympathy, or any caring at all that Menolly potentially went out in a Threadfall. When Elgion suggests that Menolly may have holed up in a cave, Yanus nods and assumes she'll be back, finding "relief in this theory" and moving on to something else. Relief about what? Not having to expand the effort to find his daughter?

Time passes, and Menolly doesn't return, provoking anxious speculation and directives to the children looking for shellfish to keep an eye out for Menolly, her knife, or her body washing up. Mavi's constructed facade of not caring is crumbling in the face of Menolly's continued absence, and Alemi shows a continued interest in Menolly staying alive. Yanus can feel control slipping from his hands, and so makes a declaration about what to do.

> "If she [Menolly] were able and of a mind to return, she'd have done so. Everyone who is able is to keep a sharp eye for any sign of her. This includes sea as well as land. As Sea Holder, I cannot in conscience do more than that, under the circumstances.  
>  [...]  
>  Mavi, even, accepted it, almost as if she were glad if an excuse, as if the girl were an embarrassment. Only Alemi betrayed resentment.  
>  [...]  
>  "I've some time. Where would you suggest I look?" [said Elgion.]  
>  Hope flashed in Alemi's eyes, then as suddenly wariness clouded them.  
>  "I'd say it's better if Menolly remains where she is..."  
>  "Dead or hurt?"  
>  "Aye." Alemi sighed deeply. "And I wish her luck and long life."  
>  "Then you think she's alive and chooses to be without Hold?"  
>  Alemi regarded the Harper quietly. "I think she's alive and better off wherever she is than she would be in Half-Circle."

Which leaves Elgion with the realization that he's been really bad at his secret missions to change hearts and minds and grab the mystery songwriter for Harper training as soon as possible. Which is complicated more by his realization that he hasn't actually seen Menolly much, despite supposedly getting to know everyone in the Hold. And his attempts to get information about Menolly and where she might have gone only widens the distance between him and the others, with a discernible fear from the kids that Elgion might find Menolly and bring her home.

At this point in time, I would hope every alarm bell Elgion has is ringing a deafening klaxon about the relationship between Menolly and Yanus and the need for discretion in his efforts, should they prove fruitful. Alemi has all but said Yanus is responsible for the problems at the Hold, and the distance of the children and their fear should reinforce that idea that Yanus is the problem at Half-Circle Hold. Plus, Yanus has basically abandoned his child to her fate. That should probably ring a warning bell or two about Yanus's capacity for empathy and love. (Also, fuck you, Yanus, you abusive asshole, for making no effort to find your daughter, even though your wife is clearly stressing out about it.) The isolation of this Hold compared to others allows Yanus to be abusive without it really getting out - there's only a Harper here, so no drum-communications or dragonrider assigned that could also keep an eye out for things going wrong. (It is debatable, though, based on the ethics that we have seen in action from Holders and dragonriders, whether they would object to the familial abuse, or whether they would solely object to the behavior of Yanus toward non-family members.)

The arrival of N'ton asking about fire lizards provides a connecting point to Dragonquest - the Brown Rider Rapist has impressed his fire-lizard at this point, and N'ton is asking for eyes to be kept out for eggs. No problems for the children, says Elgion, and would the sweep riders please keep an eye out for Menolly? Elgion mentions the lack of effort in searching for her, but he hasn't quite put two and four together as to the why.

N'ton leaves, and that's the end of chapter six.


	7. The Porter Scene

When we last left Half-Circle Hold, Menolly had been acknowledged as missing. And that was about as far as her search-and-rescue operation got. Yanus explicitly gave zero fucks about finding his daughter, Mavi was anxious until she had official cover to not care, which relieved her of the fear of being blamed and punished for Menolly running away, Alemi told Elgion not to try too hard to find Menolly, and the children of the Hold actively resisted giving information about Menolly. Elgion has correctly deduced that something is very rotten in Half-Circle Hold.

 **Dragonsong: Chapters 7-8: Content Notes: No content notes.** For two whole chapters, no less! 

Chapter 7 is "The Care And Feeding of Fire Lizards", starring Menolly and her cadre of _nine_ fire-lizards. We find out that Menolly had been paying attention to all the other things she has had to do at the Hold, and can therefore find food, whether by forage or by fishing, gather fire-starting materials, harden clay vessels in the ashes of that fire, and boil water. And teach nine fire lizards the finer points of hunting.

Menolly is also able to fashion reed pipes so that she can play and sing music again, and the fire lizards are an appreciative audience, and learn to study of harmonize with her as she makes music. Menolly treats them like people are supposed to treat dragons, and things work well for her. She also learns that the queen fire-lizard rules the nine, with commands and scolds and discipline all coming from her. 

The first major test for Menolly comes when she needs to collect some sort of oil for the cracking fire-lizard skin.

> The closest source of oil swarm in the sea. But she'd no boat to catch the deep-sea oily fishes, so she searched the coast for dead fish and found a packtail washed up during the night. She slit the carcass, carefully, always working the knife blade away from her, and squeezed the oil from the skin into a cup. Not the most pleasant of jobs; and by the time she'd finished, she had a bare cupful of unpleasantly fishy yellow oil. Yet it did work.

This could have been a spot for drama or to show us more explicitly how much Menolly's mental state has improved - the packtail is the fish Menolly was working on when she sliced her hand open. Regrettably, all we get is that Menolly exercises caution with her knife in skinning the fish. It's an acknowledgement, but it's very much a missed opportunity to examine how well she is or isn't doing in relation to her Hold, to any memories that might have surfaced upon seeing a packtail, or anything else. Menolly's mental fortitude must be doing quite well, for the narrative to be so blase about this encounter.

When seeking more oil, Menolly comes across a trapped wherry and kills it, disembowels it, strips the meat, fat, and all the rest, then leaves the bones and organs as a feast for her lizards and the older clutch. Oil problem solved, as Menolly can also render fat into grease with her fire and clay vessels.

At the end of the chapter, the fire-lizards get names: Uncle (the small blue who always seems to get bullied), Auntie One and Auntie Two (greens), Rocky and Diver (bronzes, named for their hunting habits), Lazybones, Mimic, and Brownie (browns, named for their behavior), and Beauty (gold queen, named for her fastidiousness in cleaning herself).

This is a pleasant interlude, with happy entities all around and much laughter and geniality at the antics of the fire lizards. Even Shakespeare knew you wanted to lighten the mood before diving into the very tragic parts. Chapter Eight opens with Alemi suffering a broken leg and then getting cabin fever at having to rest. Yanus was unhappy about the break, but Mavi was able to turn him aside by pointing out it would be an opportunity to see if his XO could captain a ship.

Thus, bored and looking for something to do, Alemi drops in on Elgion teaching a new song to the kids. Alemi is a quick study and is soon singing along with them, to his own happiness.

> "How's the leg, Alemi?" the Harper asked when the room had emptied.  
>  "I'll have a weather-wise ache now for sure.  
>  [...]  
>  That's a fine ballad you're teaching."  
>  "That's a fine voice you were singing it with, too. Why don't you sound out more often? I was beginning to think the sea wind snatches the voice of everyone at about twelve Turns."  
>  "You should have heard my sis..." and Alemi stopped, flushed, and clamped his lips tight.

Elgion inquires after the mysterious boy with the composing talent, and Alemi can't bring himself to say who made those songs, even after Elgion says they're great and that he's sending them on to Robinton. He hopes that the composer will show himself when he hears his own compositions. Elgion is dealing with a plot-mandated Idiot Ball at this point, considering how much Alemi has already slipped and the attitude of everyone regarding Menolly. He works through it as best he can, though, by delighting in Alemi's flexibility and making a deal with him to teach him music if Alemi will teach him sailing. The mutual exchange of skills creates a friendship and Elgion uses the cover of his learning to borrow a boat and range up the coastline looking for the signs of fire-lizard eggs. Once let in on the secret, Alemi is eager to sail in close and look on the beaches. Which gives Elgion a good enough listen to hear music. Pipes, specifically.

> "Alemi! That's music! Not wind over blow holes! That's someone playing pipes."  
>  An unhappy furtive thought crossed Alemi's face so plainly that Elgion jumped to a conclusion. All at once, the pieces feel into place.  
>  "Your sister, the one who's missing. **She** wrote those songs. She taught the children, not the conveniently dismissed fosterling!"  
>  [...]  
>  Slowly Alemi nodded. "Yanus believed the Sea Hold disgraced to have a girl taking the place of a Harper."  
>  [...]  
>  Now Elgion could understand many things about Menolly's disappearance and the general reluctance at the Hold to discuss her or find her. Anyone sensitive enough to compose such melodies must have found life in the Sea Hold intolerable: doubly so with Yanus as Sea Holder and father. And then to be considered a disgrace! Elgion cursed Petiron for not making the matter plain. If only he had told Robinton that the promising musician were a girl, she might have been at the Harperhall before that knife had a chance to slip.

Oh, thank Prime Elgion isn't carrying the Idiot Ball any more. His suspicion should have been roused a lot earlier than this, instead of having a flash of insight based on music, but we can finally move forward with the plot, now that Elgion is on board. If Elgion had been able to put aside his own prejudices and hadn't accepted Yanus's story as fact, we could have gotten here a lot earlier. Because Robinton, whenever described, is apparently really on board with the equality thing, so it's a bit of a miss that such an attitude wasn't instilled into Elgion before he left for Half-Circle.

_[Of course, as we'll discover, Robinton is really rather disengaged with his teachers and students. It's a necessary plot problem so that both Menolly and Piemur can be bullied in their respective stories, and it allows teachers with prejudicial attitudes to flourish, as well, so it's not so much that Robinton is against progressivism, but that he basically does nothing to affirmatively and actively ensure his views are replicated throughout the entire Harper structure. People with great power failing to use it for anything useful is one of those things that happens a lot in these books.]_

Before they return, Alemi warns Elgion against divulging his knowledge, for obvious reasons. And Elgion, gifted with a free day from teaching, hatches a plan to go back and find Menolly in the caverns. Thus ends Chapter Eight.


	8. And, Action!

Last chapter, thanks to his friendship with Alemi, Elgion was finally permitted to deduce the circumstances of Menolly's absence and the nature of the mysteriously absent songwriter that Elgion was sent to find. With everyone finally in place, the action begins.

 **Dragonsong: Chapter 9: Content Notes: Misgendering**.

Chapter 9 returns to Menolly's troupe, where breakfast is the order of the day, and Menolly's chief concern is figuring out how to repair her shoes and/or make new ones. On a long-range expedition, Menolly discovers a stream that could make for excellent foraging ground, but her explorer instinct is curbed first by the thought of food, and then secondly by the dread realization that she's been caught too far from shelter during an advancing Threadfall.

> She told herself firmly that now was not the time to panic. She forced herself to swallow the last of the cress juices. Then she had no control over her legs; they took off with her and she was running, toward the sea and toward the rock safety of her cave.

It's been well-established that Menolly is fast by this point, so part of the convincing part of the drama is that she could make it back. The thought crosses her mind to use the water as safety, but the difficulty of staying under during a Threadfall, and the likelihood of hobbling herself on the rocks nixes that idea. For as fast as Menolly is, and with the fire-lizards flying protective formations above her, though, the leading edge of Threadfall is gaining on her. Menolly doesn't know that fire-lizards eat Thread, not that it would be useful in the rain oncoming, so this is a good moment of drama. Now, with our previous knowledge of the narrative, there's no way Menolly would be able to get back in time - women characters are not able to do things under their own power, if their views run contrary to the established male-dominant order, and will be punished for trying. But for someone new to the series, there's still the possibility of being able to outrun the dangerous advancing curtain.

> She heard the whoosh, heard the fire lizards' startled chirrups, saw the shadow and feel to the ground covering her head instinctively with her hands, her body taut for the first fell off flesh-scoring Thread. She smelled fire-stone, and felt the air heavy against her body.  
>  "Get on your feet, you silly fool! And hurry. Leading edge is nearly on us."  
>  Incredulous, Menolly looked up, right into the whirling eyes of a brown dragon.

No, thankfully, it is not the Brown Rider Rapist. The rider warps through hyperspace to Benden Weyr, which gives Menolly an experiential lesson on the Teaching Song regarding _between_.

And a quick reality check on the size of everything, as Benden is big enough to fit the entirety of Half-Circle and about half again. The rider lets Menolly off...

> You can relax your death hold, lad,"  
>  [...]  
>  "Down you go, lad, I've got to rejoin my wing to mop up."  
>  This was the second time he'd called her "lad."  
>  "You've a fine pace on you. Ever think of going for Hold runner?"

[[RECORDSCRATCH.]](http://www.freesound.org/people/luffy/sounds/3536/) Bzuh? Not the bit about admiring Menolly's fleetness of foot, but that a dragonrider didn't feel or see anything that suggested his passenger was a woman, despite having a good look at her while she was trying to outrun the Thread and her "death grip" on him during the warp? Maybe there's some allowance for the fact that he's not really focusing on her past the point of dropping her off and getting back to the fighting, but this also suggests that Menolly is, well, flat. Despite being fifteen, which in a medieval pastiche-world, would be likely well past the point of puberty. And there's no indication that Half-Circle is somehow food insecure or otherwise being exposed to chemicals that would slow or stunt puberty growth and development. I think we're supposed to believe that Menolly's athletic build and lifestyle has given her muscle and strength instead of a curvy figure. (Before continuing, I consulted [a go-to collection of pictures of Olympic athletes surrounded by an excellent post about body types and fitness models](http://www.stumptuous.com/why-dont-you-look-like-a-fitness-model) to make sure what I said next was actually accurate to actual athletic bodies. Unfortunately for my research, most of the athletes are pictured frontally, rather than to the side, but even frontal pictures gives a pretty good clue about what's going on.) If Menolly has been building an athletic frame, there may not be much there to distinguish her, but the close proximity should have given the rider a fairly accurate picture of things, (maybe the fighting gear reduces his ability to sense things), the dragon doesn't correct his rider (which may be due to dragons communicating about people by visualizing them, but still, the dragon would know), and Menolly manages to somehow not betray herself through her breathing (which should be heavier due to her run) and doesn't say anything in the process of being transferred, not even a casual or happy "Thank you" for her rescue. (Panic freeze, maybe, but it takes a while to wing down to the landing zone.) Menolly basically avoids discovery until she tries to step down and nearly faints from the pain.

> "My feet!" She'd run the boots to uppers without knowing it, and her lacerated feet were bloody from toe to heel.  
>  [...]  
>  He grabbed her by the wrist, gave a practiced yank, and laid her over his shoulder.  
>  [...]  
>  "Just look at his feet! He's run them raw!"  
>  "T'gran, wherever..."  
>  "Saw him trying to outrun Thread down Nerat way. Bloody near did!"

No, no, no, wait, wait. First, the oath "bloody" derives from "God's blood", a reference to the Being Represented By The Tetragrammaton, who has been conspicuously absent from all of these books. I can accept references to dragon eggs, but the blood of a deity with no followers? I think not.

Second, T'gran has no reason to keep referring to Menolly as a him, unless he knows something about her gender identity that the rest if us do not. (If this were so, though, this plot would be Mulan, not Rapunzel.) I doubt that Menolly's pained scream can pass as a dude with an awesome falsetto. (Not that they don't exist, but seriously, most people can tell the difference between female singers and guys with awesome falsetto.)

Third, T'gran has probably added a dislocated shoulder, sprained wrist, or broken bones to Menolly's injured feet with that move. I'm not an expert in wrestling maneuvers or other ways of carrying people, but I suspect the wrist joints are not meant to be used in that fashion, and especially not for the one hundred plus pounds of force that had to be exerted just to lift Menolly, much less the extra force applied to put her over the shoulder quickly. The narrative doesn't mention these use of the other hand as either a support or where all the actual lifting takes place, so my mental picture is that T'gran grabs Menolly by the wrist, throws her into the air toward him, and catches her on his shoulder. Which should hurt, a lot, for everyone. And that's assuming Menolly is on the small end of size and weight of those athletic women, like the gymnasts, and not on the larger end, like the basketball players, despite being described as both tall and strong, and someone with the ability to run long distances at high speed. To dead lift her in that awkward way would suggest incredible strength. And should hurt like hell for everyone involved.

Back to the plot. Menolly is dosed with fellis juice and quickly fades to black, as we're told she's the second person brought in today. The other? Elgion, of course, who went looking for Menolly today and was also caught out in Threadfall. And who also thinks this other person caught out is a boy. I realize that the whole plot hinges around Menolly being thought of as a boy, but this is starting to stain credulity. Elgion doesn't put two and three together to think about whether this "boy" could be the lost girl. He's too wrapped up in how he's going to deal with Yanus when he gets back to Half-Circle, I guess. Yanus has apparently gotten to the Harper as well. But Elgion takes advantage of a delay in getting him back to observe daily Weyr life and to get acquainted with fire-lizards.

_[Knowing what I know now about gender identity and the binary, this could have turned out to be more complicated than that, but there's no indication that Menolly wanted to identify as a boy, other than what privileges, like being a Harper, might come with the territory. Which might have let her try to put herself in an Albert Nobbs situation, not that any entity on Pern would have let her get away with that in any way at all. And Menolly is probably not out running in dresses and skirts, so there's vastly fewer visual and tactile cues than the me of a few years thought there would have been. I still fault Elgion completely for not following up on what had to have been an interesting story about the person who thought they could outrun Thread and damn near managed it.]_

When he's returned, the dragonrider spins the clock back so that Elgion returns to Yanus much earlier in the day that he would normally have gone. There is a discussion of fire-lizard eggs, and Alemi wants to know if Elgion found anything in a specific cave. Which arouses Yanus's suspicion, but Elgion and Alemi are able to successfully navigate their shared story to prevent any slip-ups. Yanus asks for some words with Elgion, but the Harper has discerned the way to deal with Yanus without having to lie - he can claim just about anything in relation to the Weyr, and Yanus will let it slide because Yanus respects the Weyr more than himself and his Hold. Elgion has found the weak point, finally.

And so chapter 9 concludes, with the Harper still holding the secondary Idiot Ball with regard to Menolly, even if he has figured out how to get Yanus on board with change.


	9. Recovering Old Wounds, Inflicting New Ones

When we last left Menolly, she had attempted to outrun a Threadfall, burning through her shoes and some amount of her foot skin, and was convalescing at Benden Weyr. Elgion found Yanus's weak point, but remained in the dark about Menolly's whereabouts and her musical skill, because the plot insists that he not know.

 **Dragonsong: Chapter 10: Content Notes: Parental Abuse**. Fun content: Overcoming an abusive past, having fun.

From here on out, the narrative is going to give us a lot of connective tissue to Dragonquest. It will be, in some ways, like watching a movie with the alternate camera angles feature turned on. This is the first time a newcomer would see these events, so the repetition is necessary.

Chapter 10 opens with the recovery of Menolly. Upon awaking, Menolly feels the comfort of her fire lizard queen for a bit before the queen disappears at the presence of another person. Her nurse asks about her feet, to which Menolly lies, likely reflexively instead of deliberately, but her nurse doesn't take her word for it. It's immediately clear, however, that Menolly has stepped into an entirely different world.

> "You'd run your feet to ribbons..." The was a slight hesitation in the woman's voice. "They'll be fine in a sevenday. No serious cuts." The quiet voice held a ripple of amusement. "T'gran is convinced you're the fastest[...]runner in Pern."  
>  "I'm not a runner. I'm just a girl."  
>  "Not 'just' a girl."  
>  [...]  
>  "I'm Manora," the woman said add she termed with a bowl of streaming stew and a mug. "You realize you're at Benden Weyr? Good. You may stay here as long as you wish."  
>  "I can?" A relief as intense as the pain in her feet flooded Menolly.  
>  "Yes, you can," and the firmness of that reply made that right inalienable.

_[The comments on the original point out that we've managed to pass the Bechdel Test in this chapter, to much hooting and hollering on all of our parts.]_

Hooray, a person that finally respects Menolly...and that seems to know what's been going on with her. This may become important later. After another assurance that Menolly can stay and that Half-Circle won't be told about where she is, Manora departs, and Menolly's fire lizard queen, Beauty, stops by to see her and to nick some of her stew. Menolly says that Beauty is supposed to stay hidden before sleeping again, but Menolly's scientific mind is trying to figure out how Beauty knew where to go to find her.

Menolly reawakens to the sound of laughter, and meets her current nurse...Mirrim, Brekke's caretaker. (At this particular point, Brekke is still suicidally depressed.) After a little sniping at each other about how out of touch Menolly is and how Mirrim doesn't know about the biggest dock cavern in Pern, the two have a laugh and Mirrim helps Menolly to the toilet, euphemistically "the necessary". Which is an odd euphemism, unless they're talking about the act of urination instead of the place, but no, a few sentences later, its clear they're talking about the place. After "the necessary", Mirrim changes the bandages on Menolly's feet, keeping up a running conversation without stopping at any point to let Menolly get a word in edgewise, at least until they discuss the lack of infection in her feet, and Menolly shows Mirrim her hand. Mirrim's response is noteworthy:

> "Well, you are using those fingers. A bit drawn that scar, though." Mirrim clucked her tongue with professional dismay. "Don't think much of your Hold's nursing if that's any sample."

That's an interesting assessment. Menolly, being quite brilliant, draws the logical conclusion from this information.

> Definitely Mavi had given her the distinct impression that she'd never be able to use her hand again. Yet Mavi was too skilled a healer not to have known that the knife had missed the finger tendons. She had deliberately let the hands heal with drawn flesh. It was painfully clear to Menolly that Mavi, as well as Yanus, had not wanted her to be able to play again.  
>  Grimly, Menolly vowed that she'd never return to Half-Circle. Her reflections made her doubt Manora's assurance that she could stay at Benden Weyr. No matter, she could run away again. Run she could, and live holdless. And that's what she'd do. Why, she'd run all across Pern...And why not? Menolly became pleased with the notion. Indeed, the was nothing to stop her from running right to the Masterharperhall in Fort Hold. Maybe Petiron **had** sent her songs to Masterharper Robinton. Maybe they were more than just twiddles. Maybe...but there was no maybe about returning to Half-Circle Hold! That she would not do.

Oh, Menolly. How horrible it is to have two parents so willing to abuse you over your talents, even the one that supposedly loves you deliberately letting your hand scar. I hope there's happiness in store for you yet, even though the narrative has yet to let anyone through with new ideas or non-traditional gender roles without severe damage to them first.

Menolly asks to do something useful the next day, and Mirrim pairs Menolly with Sanra in looking after the fosterlings. Who ruthlessly mine Menolly for every scrap of information she had about fishing and sailing and only leave her be after she teaches them how to build small ships and go sail them in the Weyr lake. Her happiness almost brings her to song, which she cuts short in fear. Afterward, though, she thinks things through, and the lightbulb comes on that she's not at Half-Circle, she has no intention of going back to Half-Circle, and there are no powers in Pern that can move her back there if she doesn't want to go. So she starts humming the tune she was composing in her head. Then we get the abbreviated version of the queen fight in Dragonquest. Sanra, in relating the story, reminds us that everyone hates Kylara for what happened. That night, when Mirrim is changing Menolly's bandages, we have another gentle reminder of how things are changed for Menolly.

> " **You** taught the weyrlings how to make those little boats, didn't you?"  
>  Menolly flipped over, startled, and wondering if she'd done wrong, but Mirrim was grinning.  
>  "You should have **seen** the dragons snorting them about the lake." Mirrim giggled. "Having the grandest time. I haven't laughed so much in weeks."

And then the fire lizards arrive the next day as the comic relief. All nine of them, that is, making quite a racket through the Weyr as they look for Menolly. The antics of the nine have attracted Lessa's attention, and she follows them into the kitchen. For reference, Lessa is described as "A small, slim woman in riding gear" with no mention of the assets Lessa looked at in the mirror all the way back in Dragonflight. The fire lizards have set Ramoth (and by extension, Lessa) on edge, so Ramoth quiets them, which causes the lizards to have an even greater fear reaction, just silently. Menolly identifies her nine, which provokes Lessa to ask about her story, and Menolly spills it all out, including the knowledge of where another egg clutch is. Lessa's reaction there is to get even more annoyed at not knowing this information beforehand. It's overwhelming to Menolly.

> Menolly hung her head in despair.  
>  "Please, Weyrwoman, don't send me back to Half-Circle Hold!"  
>  "A girl who can impress nine fire lizards," said Lessa in a sharp rippling tone that made Menolly look up, "does not belong in a Sea Hold."  
>  [...]  
>  She swept away, leaving the entire cavern breathless. Activity suddenly picked up on all sides of the kitchen. Menolly felt Mirrim pressing her into a chair; she sank weakly down. She found a cup of klah in her hands and heard T'gellan urging her to take a few sips.  
>  "One's first encounter with Lessa is apt to be unnerving."  
>  "She's...she's so small," Menolly said dazedly.  
>  "Size is irrelevant."

That, and Lessa could stand to be more empathetic. Her Sith side must have been showing there, possibly aided by Ramoth's protectiveness regarding her eggs. Still, it's not the greatest impression to make on someone, unless you're the kind of person who wants to be feared, rather than loved. Again, this could be an opportunity to check in with Menolly's psyche, considering that kind of imperious tone is probably going to dredge up flashbacks of how Mavi or Yanus spoke to her that way, possibly before she got beaten as a child. Menolly is showing signs of mental stress, and right after the quoted part, Mirrim chides T'gellan for joking with Menolly while she's still frazzled. And Menolly seemed to be more in a panic as Lessa was arriving, but it evaporated in the conversation setting, instead of keeping her so very keyed up in fear that the wrong word _would_ send her back. I would have expected the entire situation to produce more of a reaction on the scale of a PTSD event over the possibility of Lessa being mad at her.

_[Also, having learned a bit more about how PTSD manifests, it's entirely possibly that Menolly was having exactly that, but it's not a given that people have the same kinds of reactions to traumatic stressors. Lessa is still an imposing powerfhouse, both physically and mentally, so that probably didn't help anyone in any way.]_

Before the night is over, Menolly is back at her cave, courtesy T'gellan and Monarth, to clean it out in case the old fire lizard queen comes back to lay another clutch.

> "D'you want any of these things?"  
>  "Not many," Menolly said and dove for her sleeping rug. Her pipes were still there, so he hadn't seen them in his first visit to the cave. "My oil..." she said, grabbing up the pot. "I'll need that."  
>  "Not really," said T'gellan with a grin, "but bring it along. Manora's always interested in such things."  
>  She took her dried herbs, too, and made a neat package, which she could tie on her back. Ruthlessly then she began to chuck her homemade crockery out of the cave entrance.

Wait for it...

> "Oh!" Aghast, she rushed to the mouth, looking about for Monarth.  
>  "You missed him! He's got more sense than to stay around when there's a cleaning." With that T'gellan launched her boiling pot into the air.

And Chapter Ten ends with them going to look for the clutch of eggs Menolly found earlier.

Notice, though, that Menolly was aware enough of who else was around to go check on Monarth. Menolly and Jaxom still have the highest empathy scores of any of the people around them. T'gellan uses the opportunity to make a sexist joke (the male dragon knows better than to be around when the women's work is happening, har, har), but that seems par for the course on Pern, and especially among dragonriders. 

Stepping just a tiny bit into Chapter 11, they find the clutch. Thirty-one eggs. We'll see how that affects everything next time.


	10. From Panic to Pleasure and Back Again, Both Ways

Last time, Menolly spent quite a bit of time acclimating to Weyr life and healing her feet from her sprint against Thread, made friends with Mirrim, and meet Lessa on a day when Lessa was in an irritable mood.

 **Dragonsong: Chapters 11-12: Content Notes: PTSD**. Good content: Empathy! In spades!

Chapter 11 is short, but impactful. Bringing back a clutch of thirty-one eggs improves Lessa's mood considerably, and she places Menolly in charge of making sure the eggs are warm and sandy. And orders up new clothes for Menolly, leaving her in Felena's care. Who starts with a long series of orders to her staff to get clothes, footwear, and something to give Menolly a haircut.

> "How many Turns do you have?" Felena asked on the end of that long series of orders.  
>  "I've fifteen, please," answered Menolly, dazed and trying very hard not to cry. Her throat aches and her chest was tight and she couldn't believe what was happening to her: people fussing over how she liked and what she wore. Above all, Lessa had smiled at her because she was so pleased about the clutch. And it seemed as if she didn't have to worry about being sent back to Half-Circle. Not if the weyrfolk were ordering her shoes and giving her clothes...  
>  "Fifteen? Well, you wouldn't need much more fostering, would you?" Felena sounded disappointed. "We'll see what Manora has in mind for you. I'd like you as mine."  
>  Menolly burst into tears.

So, remember last time when I talked about how the narrative missed opportunities to check in on Menolly's mental state? Apparently, it's anticipated that criticism and is giving us very clear signals here. It is a nice touch to explicitly mention that Menolly feels safer because Lessa is happy, because that definitely jibes with the idea of Menolly not wanting to upset anyone who can send her back. And the tears of joy at finally feeling somewhere secure and having people pay attention to her because she's done well, not because she's pissed Yanus or Mavi off, is also very in-character with Menolly's past.

If a bit baffling to the weyrfolk. Manora arrives and asks why Menolly is crying, and is able to settle her down and strike up a conversation with her.

> Menolly found it easy to talk to Manora, and soon she was showing the headwoman the oil and explaining how she'd made it.  
>  "I think you did successfully well all on your own, Menolly, not but what I'd expect of someone Mavi has trained."  
>  Menolly's ease disappeared at the sound of her mother's name. Involuntarily she clenched her left hand, feeling the scar tissue pull painfully from the intensity of her grip.  
>  "You wouldn't like me to send a message to Half-Circle?" asked Manora. "To say you're safely here?"  
>  "I don't want you to, please! I'm no use to them there." She held up her scarred hand. "And..." she halted, she'd been about to add "a disgrace." "I seem to be useful here," she said quickly, pointing to the basket of fire lizard eggs.  
>  "So you are, Menolly, so you are."

**_Empathy_**. It is so lovely to see characters practicing it. It's interesting to see that Manora, the person who runs the household logistically, has it, but all the people who are nominally charge of the household seem to be rather lacking in it. Menolly isn't wrong that Yanus and Mavi consider her a disgrace, but it's a good sign of recovery that Menolly isn't using that terminology on herself at this point. 

Mirrim approves of Menolly's new wardrobe, and shocks Menolly a bit by giving as good as T'gellan does in barbs and insults, and T'gellan gives Menolly a cup of wine, which also shocks her, because wine was saved for special occasions at Half-Circle. The wine is enough, along with something that Manora gave her for nerves earlier (whisky, perhaps? Or beer?) to lower Menolly's inhibitions about music that she hums her own harmony to the Weyr's Harper, Oharan, playing. Mirrim notices, and drags the Harper over to hear. T'gellan gives Menolly another cup of wine, and that helps Menolly get over Yanus's conditioning about singing in front of others enough to sing along.

> "Yes, I like it, Menolly. You've a sure sense of pitch," said Oharan so approvingly that she started to worry again.  
>  If Yanus knew she was singing at the Weyr...But Yanus wasn't here and he would never know.  
>  "Say, can you harmonize to this one?" And Oharan broke into one of the older ballads, one in which she had always sung a counter-tune against Petiron's melody.  
>  Suddenly there were other voices humming along, softly but surely. Mirrim looked around, stared suspiciously at T'gellan, and then pointed at Beauty.  
>  "She's humming in tune. Menolly, however did you reach her to do that? And the others...some of them are singing, too!" Mirrim was wide-eyed with amazement.

The singing continues, and then the questioning is ready to start, when Menolly hiccups from the drink. Which switches Mirrim from collaborator to den mother immediately, and they hustle Menolly off to bed to sleep it off.

And thus ends chapter 11, with Menolly taking fledgling steps toward really breaking free of the poisonous mentality that Yanus and Mavi instilled in her. Admittedly, with the help of alcohol, which isn't the best way to go about going it.

Chapter 12 opens with Mirrim rousing Menolly, who is hung over from the drinking, because today is Hatching Day and every hand is needed to prepare the feast. Mirrim is still talking a mile-a-minute, trying to hide her real feelings, which come out in a giant cry and a quick summary of what state Brekke is in, and how Brekke loves the Brown Rider Rapist (although Mirrim doesn't know what he did to Brekke). The best line, though, is once again, the practice of empathy:

> Menolly just let Mirrim cry, knowing how much relief she had felt the day before when she'd wept, and hoping deep in her heart that there might be joyful tears, too, for Mirrim later that day. There had to be. She forgave Mirrim all her little poses and attitudes, aware that that was how Mirrim had masked her intense anxiety and grief

For fuck's sake, where were all these empathetic and likable characters in the first two goddamn books? It definitely seems like the writing knack is in teenage protagonists, because I like all of Anne McCaffrey's younger characters a lot more than her older ones.

The kitchen is ablaze with activity - the cooks have been at work, and there are weyrmen pitching in as well, getting a large beast ready for cooking (already, we see more cooperation and efficient kitchen-running than Ruatha, where cooks kicked drudges and left them all the work). Given the choice between peeling roots and cooking the fish, Menolly elects the fish and spices up a large quantity of stew (which earns compliments from Felena, the head cook), with enough time left over to hack away at the root pile and decorate some cakes. There's a lot of chatter going on, and the actual time the Hatching starts catches Menolly with a kitchen-stained shirt when her ride to the event appears.

The next several paragraphs are a reworking of the hatching that involves Brekke re-awakening, thanks to her fire-lizard, and Jaxom's Impression of Ruth, which Menolly gets to see because her ride has completely forgotten about picking her up. Menolly is happy for Mirrim at Brekke's return to active awareness, and for Jaxom's Impression of Ruth, because she only understands the happy part, not the social taboo of "Lord Holders can't be dragonriders." (Conflicted loyalties! A potential enemy with a dragon of his own! Oh no! It's not like F'lar couldn't fix the problem by putting Lessa in charge. Or Lytol, if he wants to be a dick to both Lessa and Jaxom.) Which is like the taboo of "Women can't be Harpers" - an arbitrary rule imposed by people more interested in protecting their privilege than in truly getting the best people in the right jobs.

So Chapter 12 finishes with Menolly witnessing something incredible, but with no ride back to the feast.


	11. Unnecessary Subterfuge

When we last left Menolly, she had a home at Benden Weyr, and had excellent seats for all the hatching excitement that brought Brekke back and created a conflict with Jaxom. All that's left is to feast! And, that is, for the plot regarding Petiron's apprentice to resolve.

**Dragonsong: Chapter 13: Content Notes: Non-consensual touching, sexism, gaslighting-esque deception**

Having been forgotten by her dragonrider escort, Menolly has to make her way across the hot Hatching Ground sands by herself.

> Although Menolly had not far to walk on the sands, the heat had quickly penetrated the soles of her slippers. Her discomfort was acute by the time she stepped onto the cooler earth of the Bowl. She edged to one side of the entrance and sank down, her fire lizards gathering themselves about her while she waited for the pain to subside.  
>  As everyone was on the kitchen cavern side of the Bowl, no one noticed her, for which she was grateful since she felt useless and foolish.

A subtle punishment from the narrative for Menolly's continued empathy and recovery, by having her paired up with the absentminded dragonrider, and thus having to walk on her bad feet.

A tall man strikes up a polite conversation with her about her fire lizards. Upon figuring out that all the fire lizards arrayed about Menolly are hers, he knows who she is, and mentions that he's supposed to get two eggs from her clutch, one for him, one for his Journeyman. He offers her a hand when she mentions she should be tending the eggs.

> She accepted his aid because she couldn't have risen without it. He had taken three strides when he realized that she wasn't keeping up with him. Politely he turned. Menolly tried to walk normally, a feat she managed for about three strides when her heel came down so painfully on a patch of pebbles that she involuntarily cried out.  
>  [...]  
>  "Here's my arm, girl. Were you too long on the hot sands? Ah now, wait. You're a long child, but there's no meat on your bones."  
>  Before Menolly could protest, he'd swung her up into his arms and was carrying her across the Bowl.

Okay, wait. Have we forgotten that Menolly is a distance runner, and has been living a life that requires strength and dexterity? And there's still been no mention at all that Menolly has suffered from food insecurity at any point in this narrative. There's very little likelihood that she has "no meat on her bones", because Menolly's life is based on building muscle in her arms and legs. She could still be carried, if this tall man is strong, but "no meat" only works if the tall man has never seen musculature on a woman.

Secondly, and more importantly, whoa! Way to ignore consent, there. Yes, Menolly is suffering from a disability, but that does not give anyone free reign to touch her or fail to ask first whether it's okay to pick her up. (Seriously. Chair users understand this aggravation a lot. And pregnant women.) This is still the basic reality here in Pern - men feel entitled to women's bodies. Menolly wants to be independent and stand on her own feet, even if they're hurting, because it's important to her psyche that she does things herself. The tall man robs her of this, and ignores her continued protests, presuming he knows better. 

Finally, with all the technology around, is there nobody who has fabricated a pair of crutches so that some injured dragonrider can get about? It's odd.

Anyway, the tall man takes her back to the fire lizard eggs, and everyone is giving way to the tall man, which is a clue that he's important, but it takes Felena to identify him.

> "I can stand, really I can, sir," Menolly protested, for something in Felena's manner told her that this man was too important to be toting sore-footed girls. "Felena, I couldn't stop him."  
>  "I'm only being my usual ingratiating self," the man told her, "and do stop struggling. You're too heavy!"  
>  Felena was laughing at his exaggeration as she led the way to Menolly's table above the egg basket.  
>  "You're a terrible fellow, Master Robinton, indeed you are."  
>  [...]  
>  "After the way Menolly's queen had been attacking me, I'd be safer with any other color, Felena. Now do get that wine for me, there's a good woman. I'm utterly parched."

Oh. And he we are, with this weird problem of Robinton. Because he's supposedly progressive enough that Petiron sent the songs to him, expecting he would take on Menolly, but here he is, engaging in what seems all the world like sexist banter with Felena, and he completely ignored Menolly's consent earlier. 

Robinton introduces himself to Menolly, much to Menolly's embarrassment, and asks her to have a drink with him. Menolly declines, sharing that she gets hiccups and sleepy. Which prompts Robinton to request food, as he knows that having food in the belly is much better for someone to stay drinking. After eating and drinking, the Masterharper excuses himself, saying he'll be back later for his eggs.

> She watched until he was out of sight amid the visitors, bewildered, and all too keenly are that there was no way in which she would be able to ask Masterharper Robinton about her songs. Twiddles they were, as Yanus and Mavi had always said: too insignificant to be presented for serious consideration to such a man as Masterharper Robinton.  
>  [...]  
>  Mirrim found her that way, and she roused from her apathy to rejoice with her friend.

This is a narrative convention, I think, where the person meets their idol, and it goes poorly in the eyes of the supplicant, because it wasn't perfect, and they assume that it's just never going to happen. I think it has something to do with expectations. In this case, though, it becomes even more problematic because of Menolly's past.

Mirrim and Menolly discuss what happened at the Hatching Ground, including how it's not possible for Jaxom to be a Lord Holder and a dragonrider (no justification from Mirrim, either), and we learn that Elgion is also here, but Menolly doesn't want to talk to him, which irritates Mirrim, and Mirrim flounces. Right before T'gellan arrives, apologizes for leaving her behind, and the night's work of handing out eggs begins. Elgion singing reminds her of home, but not enough to make her want to go back. She's still depressed about her interaction with Robinton, to the point where she thinks her only real skill is in gutting fish.

Truthfully, she has skill in empathy as well, as she explains to the Masterminer, her first client, the prosaic aspects of keeping fire lizard eggs - heat, care, feeding at hatching - and the more touchy-feely aspects - kindness, affection, empathy - which is supposedly something the Masterminer lacks. After a parade of people, only Robinton's eggs remain.

Then we switch to Elgion, who was hoping for his own fire lizard from the clutch. And who still doesn't get it about his Hold.

> He hadn't realized how dour Half-Circle Hold was until this evening. Yanus was a good man, a fine Sea Holder to judge by the reflect his holders accorded him, but he certainly knew how to take the joy out of living.

No, no, no, no, no! Yanus is an abusive fuck who maintains an iron hold on his domain. What you are mistaking for respect, Elgion, is _fear_. Elgion meets T'gellan, who teases him that the piper he was looking for has been here at Benden for a while now. Which excites Elgion, and when T'gellan tells him it was Menolly, Elgion launches into a complete frenzy, enlisting the dragonrider to get him to the Masterharper at once, so that the last mystery of Petiron's apprentice can be finally solved.

> "Sir, sir, I've found her," Elgion cried, dashing up to them.  
>  [...]  
>  "She ran away from the Sea Hold, because they wouldn't let her make music, I think. She's Alemi's sister..."  
>  "What's this about Menolly?" asked Manora, obstructing Elgion's flight with the Harper.  
>  [...]  
>  "What do you want of Menolly, Master Robinton?" Manora's voice was so stern that the Harper was brought up sharp.  
>  He took a deep breath. "My much respected Manora, old Petiron sent me two songs written by his 'apprentice'; two of the loveliest melodies I've heard in all my Turns of harpering. He asked were they any good..." Robinton raised his eyes heavenward for patience, "I sent word back immediately, but the old man had died. Elgion found my message unopened when he got to the Sea Hold, and then he couldn't find the apprentice. The Sea Holder gave him some folderol about a fosterling who'd returned to his own hold. What's distressing you, Manora?"  
>  "Menolly. I knew someone had broken that girl's heart, but not what. She may not be able to play, Master Robinton. Mirrim says there's a dreadful scar on her left hand."  
>  "She can, too, play," said T'gellan and Elgion together.  
>  [...]  
>  "And furthermore, she's taught her fire-lizards to sing, too."  
>  "She has!" Bright sparks lit the Masterharper's eyes, and he turned purposefully toward the kitchen cavern.  
>  "Not so fast, Masterharper," said Manora. "Go softly with that child."

And the boys, with Manora's help, hatch a plan with regard to Menolly.

So, I have to say how much I love Manora here, keeping the focus on Menolly and making sure the exuberance of the Harpers doesn't trample on Menolly's well-being. Her consistent care for Menolly makes her part in what happens next jangle a bit dissonantly.

Menolly is tired, since it's been a very long day of watching people and handing out eggs to others. So Oharan stops by and aka her to sing with him. Which she says okay to, because she's still waiting for the Masterharper. Then Manora stops by and asks for another song.

> Menolly knew the song, which had such an infectious rhythm that she began to sing before she realized why it was so familiar. She was also tired and not expecting to be trapped, not by Oharan and certainly not by Manora. That's why she didn't realize at first what Oharan was playing. It was one of the two songs she'd jotted down for Petiron: the ones he said he'd send to the Masterharper.  
>  She faltered.  
>  "Oh, don't stop singing, Menolly," Manora said, "it's such a lovely tune."  
>  "Maybe she should **play** her own song," said someone standing just behind Menolly in the shadow; and the Masterharper walked forwards, holding out his own gitar to her.  
>  "No! NO!" Menolly half-rose, snatching her hands behind her back.  
>  "Won't you please play it...for me?" asked the Harper, his eyes entreating her.

Because the right thing to do to someone who is clearly experiencing a trigger is to put your own needs above theirs and add social pressure on top of that to them. That's why I'm surprised Manora went along with this, since she seems to be the one that understands Menolly best. And T'gellan and Elgion are there, too, such that Menolly understands how thoroughly the conspiracy has moved against her and how much pressure is being brought to bear on her to play.

So Menolly tries to find some stable platform to reorient on, which Robinton is having none of.

> "But I can't play..."  
>  [...]  
>  "You can play, Menolly," he said quietly, his kind eyes on hers, as he continued to stroke her hand, much as she would have caressed her frightened Beauty. "Elgion heard you when you were playing the pipes in the cave."  
>  "But I'm a girl..." she said. "Yanus told me..."  
>  "As to that," replied the Masterharper somewhat importantly, though he smiled as he spoke, "if Petiron had had sense enough to tell me that that was the problem, you might have been saved a great deal of anguish, and I certainly would have been saved a great deal of trouble searching all Pern for you. Don't you **want** to be a Harper?" Robinton ended on such a wistful, distressed note that Menolly had to reassure him.  
>  "Oh, yes, yes. I want music more than anything else in the world..."  
>  [...]  
>  "I've got fire lizards. Lessa said I belong in the Weyr."  
>  "Lessa will not tolerate **nine singing** fire lizards in her Weyr," said the Harper in a voice that brooked no contradiction.  
>  [...]  
>  "Now," and he waggled a finger at her in mock seriousness, "before you can think of any more obstacles, arguments, or distractions, will you kindly bundle up my fire lizard eggs, get whatever you have, and let us be off to the Harperhall? This has been a day of many tiring impressions."  
>  His hand pressed hers reassuringly, and his kind eyes urged her acquiescence. All Menolly's doubts and fears dissolved in an instant.

And so she goes. And that's the end of Dragonsong.

But...

_[Toss a cocowhat to your friends.]_

Seriously, that's grade-S manipulation going on there, Robinton. Taking advantage of Menolly in an altered state (remember, the last time Menolly sang, she was drunk), putting social pressure from all her friends on her, putting the pressure of your own position and what she most desperately wants in life on her, touching her and looking kind to her, knocking down her objections as if they are beneath you, and then cutting off any further objections. Robinton, you're what Lessa would be if Lessa had any _tact_. I think we have found the real power in Pern, and he knows it. With that much skill on display, though, I worry about what Robinton is like when he's not all charms and smiles. Probably a lot worse than Yanus.

I also strongly object to the idea that Petiron just simply neglected to mention the gender of his apprentice and that everything that happened in this book could have been averted if he had. Petiron sent on the music to Robinton, expecting him to read it and want whomever wrote it for the Harper hall. If it were a boy as his apprentice, that would be no problem at all, and Yanus could be convinced to let a boy go to learn the craft. 

So, here's my entirely unsupported speculation about what actually happened, which transforms this book from the fallout from an Idiot Ball plot into a For Want Of A Nail plot. Petiron had noticed and wanted to nurture Menolly's talent for music and possibly make her a Harper. Because of Yanus's inflexibility on gender roles, and his abusive nature, Petiron had taken to pretending senility in his old age, just so that he could keep Menolly close and to teach her more. The compositions were the way to make it work, but because Yanus ensured every message that left and came to the Hold went through him first, Petiron couldn't very well reveal that Menolly was the composer of the tunes. So Petiron encoded as much as he could, hoping that he could create something intriguing for Robinton to investigate in person, where Petiron could fill him in on the details, and the two of them could hatch a plan to get Menolly out safely. Unfortunately, Petiron's age claimed him before he could talk to Robinton, and so Elgion, the fresh-out-of-Hall Harper, got sent instead. Since Elgion can't see past Yanus's facade to his darker nature, the events of the book happen. If Petiron had been able to hold on long enough to consult, this wouldn't have happened. Robinton blames himself a little for not noticing the clues that Petiron left him to signal the "apprentice" was Menolly, but he's glad that she's alive and able to come to the Harper Hall, so he thinks all's well that ends well.

_[Well, that's a nice thought, certainly. But it's not at all supported by Petiron's later characterization. In his favor, though, it might not have occurred to Petiron to say a damn thing about the gender of his apprentice, because to him, it really wouldn't have mattered a jot. And if he expected to live long enough to get someone sent out that he could train and explain everything to, he wouldn't have needed to, either. Given how estranged Petiron is from his son, as we will discover, though, the music is probably the only thing he was interested in making sure got to the Harper Hall in the first place._

_I also have sympathy for people who are great fans of this series, and what they had to do to reconcile all of these variations in characterization and the retroactive continuity changes that happen all throughout the series. It couldn't have been pretty or easy.]_

Tune in next time, when Menolly gets to live out her dream...assuming that institutionalized sexism hasn't permeated the Harper Hall, like it has everywhere else. Good riddance, Yanus and Mavi. Maybe come back for the cameo appearance where Harper Menolly gets to give you both a The Reason You Suck speech, and possibly still punch out Yanus?


End file.
